One year later

“You’re going to go insane if you keep this up,” Jenny warned in a hushed voice, careful not to wake the twins and Betsy, who were curled up with Kitty under the Christmas tree.

“You didn’t cancel Christmas when Betsy was an infant,” I pointed out as I arranged lights and garlands to highlight my most precious decoration, Mal’s gift to me the day the twins were born.

All through my pregnancy, I was irrationally protective of eggs even though I knew I was carrying wolf pups. I refused to eat anything with egg in it and got choked up over all the Easter decorations. Everyone thought I was unhinged, but Malcolm thought it was adorable and we enjoyed talking about ‘our two chicks.’ While our babies, Allegra and Diego, were taking their very first post-meal nap, Malcolm presented me with a red and gold enameled Faberge egg, containing a porcelain figurine of two wolf pups curled together.

“She’s not saying you should cancel Christmas,” Malcolm said. He lost his balance for a moment, but quickly righted himself and adjusted the strand of lights he’d accidentally tugged on. “Jenny’s just suggesting that maybe we should keep decorations to a minimum.”

“We are keeping decorations to a minimum,” I said stubbornly.

My fathers-in-law would be arriving soon and I wanted to impress them. They had briefly visited to attend the christening before running back to Montana for calving season. The apartment was a disaster, I was sleep-deprived, and all I could remember was Mal’s Papá telling and retelling and re-retelling the horrific story of Mal’s own frontier-style birth.

However, the twins were now eight months old. We had fatherhood down pat and I wanted to let them know I could handle anything life threw at us. Explosive diaper? No sweat. Shifting into a pup while I tried to dress them? Par for the course. Marking the table leg his sister was teething on? Okay, that one was a little disconcerting. But I sprayed everything with that bitter apple stuff, so at least they didn’t gnaw on wood anymore. See? An easy solution to everything. And these decorations were proof.

Malcolm connected his lights to the previous strand and returned to the ground. Taking in the room, he said, “Tobias, this couldn’t be what Papá meant when he suggested only decorating half the apartment.”

This was exactly what his Papá had meant. The bottom four feet of the room were completely bare, and then Christmas exploded to coat the rest, including the ceiling. “You saw the pictures he sent.”

“Okay, but… do you actually want our home to look like that?” he asked, hope in his voice.

No. The living room in the pictures was the equivalent of a heavily-decorated palm tree. The photos all looked like they were taken in two different homes, depending on the angle. But this was cheerful and yet everything was out of reach. Well, except for the tree, but it was secured to the wall and the ornaments were all made from cookies and chew toys.

I wanted their first Christmas to be something to remember… but not because it was the night they accidentally murdered each other with knick-knacks and garlands. Seriously, what was it about infants, that they had the overwhelming need to touch and grab and taste and sniff every potentially lethal object nearby? When they weren’t courting suicide, they were nearly committing manslaughter. Half the time, Kitty helped keep them out of trouble. The rest of the time, she was aiding and abetting their mischief. Why had I been so eager for them to start crawling?

“I think he was joking, Toto,” Jenny suggested, not for the first time.

“You can’t tell that from a text.” I wavered, but I’d left this until the last minute and they’d be here in the morning. Going from a salaried position to contracting usually allowed for a more comfortable work-life balance, since I worked a strict number of hours per week, but I’d wanted to get all my work out of the way until after the holidays. In fact, I still had a little more left to do, and I’d already put too much time and effort into decorating. “We’ve already done all this. Do you really want to take it all down?”

“We’ll have to take it down eventually.” Mal hovered halfway up the ladder, hoping for a sign.

“But then we’ll have to put something else up. Come on, let’s just add this garland Betsy made and then we’ll be done. And maybe also…”

The next morning, bleary and tense from a two-layover flight followed by a rush-hour drive through New York, my new in-laws stepped into our apartment and laughed so hard that Padre accidentally shifted. The twins were overjoyed by the mirth of these two new, familiar-smelling people and shifted too, to climb all over their abuelo. My children didn’t care that I was miffed, but I chalked that up to them still being pups — if they’d been older, they probably would have laughed at me too. At least Kitty stayed by my side, so well-behaved, so I gave the dog the cue that allowed her to join in the tussle.

“It is very, very be– Well, each thing is– I can tell you put a lot of thought and effort into it,” Papá said diplomatically. “It’s very cheerful. Sort of like…”

“A circus tent?” Malcolm suggested. I’d have gasped in outrage, but I’d had a similar thought ever since I came up with the idea of hanging strands of garlands along the ceiling like spokes on a wheel. Especially once we turned on the multicolored, rhythmically blinking lights.

“It seemed like a good way to keep things out of the monsters’ reach, even after seeing your photos,” I muttered. If they were going to mock me, I couldn’t not point out that their own décor was similarly lacking.

“Malcito! Why did you not tell him the whole story?” Papá smacked his son on the arm.

“What story? You decorated, and it looked worse than this,” my mate replied, as if his fathers’ presence stripped away all of his tact.

Papá took my arm in his and led me to the kitchen. “They can keep the children happy for a while. Come along, you will make me some tea and I will tell you all about how crazy those two alphas made me.”

I set the kettle on the stove while Malcolm’s omega father told me of his own first attempts to impress his in-laws. His mother-in-law had insisted that it just wasn’t Christmas without popcorn garlands, cranberry garlands, fresh pine garlands, and more handmade decorations than any sane person should ever create, let alone make on their own while caring for five infants.

One boy was a yanker. Another was a chewer. A third was a thief. Mal’s sister was a leaper. My Mal could puzzle his way through the most excessive childproofing measures known to man. And yet, despite all the hard work the children dismantled, their Papá still managed to put up all the decorations and keep them up until after Christmas. His mother-in-law was less than impressed by his crafting skills or decorating style. After that, he only decorated using lights and items the children had made.

“I assumed my son had told you, or I would never have sent you those pictures! I just wanted to share the story and baby-proofing tips,” he said apologetically. At least I hadn’t made them myself and the four-foot height limit had been created through someone else’s trial-and-error. Malcolm’s Papa covered his mouth with his hand and suddenly turned beet red. “Oh my goodness, I was so proud of them too! What you must have thought… I promise, my decorating sense has improved since then.”

“Should I make Mal take it down now or wait until naptime?” I mused.

“Oh, no no no! You worked so hard! Keep it all up. It is Christmas. And maybe one day, another mangled story will make its way to your own daughter- or son-in-law…” We both cackled evilly at the thought of convincing another generation to decorate so zealously.

Why did people complain about the holidays? The forty-eight hours leading up to Christmas Day were like a romantic spa vacation, compared to the past seven months. My sister’s in-laws were in town as well as my parents, and all six grandparents vied for the attention of the children. Of course, Malcolm and I took advantage of all the alone-time and naptime we could get.

Sure, there were some hiccups. The grandparents all offered dueling parenting advice, in an attempt to be the most helpful. I snuck away and got absorbed in a promising little programming project of my own and nearly missed a brunch. And when I, my mother, and Mal’s Papá took the twins on a walk to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather, Allegra and Diego had a very public meltdown during which I silently begged them to stay in human form for the three minute jog home.

By the time we finished Christmas Eve dinner and all stood in Jenny and Felix’s backyard for our early evening ‘Midnight Run,’ I was already getting sad that the holidays were almost over.

“It’s time for our Christmas Wish!” Betsy shouted and then got onto the ground to explain the process to her cousins. Diego watched her intently and gummed Allegra’s tail, while Allegra impertinently nipped at the finger Betsy waggled in her face.

We all held hands, closed our eyes, and emptied our minds until the perfect wish popped into being. Mine was less a wish than it was a private message to fate: ‘Thank you — keep up the good work.’ When we opened our eyes, a light flurry of snow was beginning to fall and Betsy whooped with joy that her wish was granted so quickly.

“Did you prepare a practical wish this year?” Malcolm asked, pulling me into his side. I nuzzled against him, soaking in his scent — home, happiness, peace.

“Nah. I made a New Year’s resolution to give up practical wishes,” I joked. But since my niece had everyone distracted, I admitted, “If last year’s wish could come true…”

“Yours came true, too?” Malcolm grinned widely until I had no choice but to thoroughly kiss it off his lips. I loved that grin. I loved him. And our babies. And our amazing, wonderful life… which, a year ago, I thought was only a foolish Christmas wish.